


Dead Letter Scrolls

by Icarus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Enemies, Gen, Impossible Tasks, Post-Canon, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Snape's Deadly Office, Teacher's Lounge, Teacher-Student Relationship, Trying to understand Snape, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Tension, new professor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1990-12-26
Updated: 1990-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21967576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icarus/pseuds/Icarus
Summary: Neville had ten different visions of how he’d thought his tenure as professor would begin: none of those included clearing out Snape's deadly office.
Relationships: Neville Longbottom/Severus Snape
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Dead Letter Scrolls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sarkasticfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarkasticfics/gifts).

> Thank you to Acidburn, who was willing to beta this over the Christmas holiday. You shook the moths out of my writing and asked all the right questions.

Dead Letter Scrolls  
by Icarus

Neville had ten different visions of how he’d thought it would go, but they all started the same.

He'd open the door to the teacher's lounge, looking down, awkward at treading on what used to be sacred ground -- even as a professor, old habits would die hard. He’d scan the scruffy chairs, the rattan seat broken on one, the squashy comfortable wingback whose wings fluttered at odd times, lifting it inches off the ground. The room would be nearly empty: safe. He'd pass the drafty wall of windows, wide and spare, with a view of the dull, grey wall of Ravenclaw tower. He'd sneak quickly out after a cuppa, nodding to his favorite teachers ... Sinistra, Flitwick ... who'd smile as he left. In the hall, he'd sigh with relief that he hadn't run into Him. 

Or maybe Neville would keep to his own office for a while, theoretically too busy preparing for term. Theoretically. 

But eventually he'd square his shoulders and steel himself to stop this nonsense. He wasn’t a student anymore. He was equal to Snape in rank, if not seniority. 

That was the plan.

Instead, at his first Hogwarts staff meeting, all eyes had turned to him as the newest member in wordless expectation. Into the long silence (interrupted only by a cough and someone clearing their throat) Neville had found his hand raised under the pressure of all that hope; his nervous, quavering voice volunteering to clear out Snape's old office. To go through all his boxes and rolls of parchment, and to distribute his knickknacks. Apparently, when Snape had become Headmaster, he'd moved virtually nothing. No one else volunteered to help, though one professor inquired if she could, perhaps, have Snape's bookshelves, er, once they were cleared?

If Neville had found Snape terrifying, his office door left Neville flustered. 

It refused the password Headmistress McGonagall had given him. Once. Twice. He faced the cross-timbered oak in frustration, irrationally worried -- could it sense that he was just lowly Neville Longbottom, a student Snape had disdained? But on the third try it reluctantly squeaked open. Neville stepped in -- and it snapped shut, as stubborn as Snape himself. 

The room was barely lit with a phosphorescent green glow. A dim Spell O' Candle, enchanted to light the moment someone entered, guttered to life. Its light rimmed a skull-shaped candlestick, casting a meagre circle on a messy desk. Scrolls were left loose, dusty and cobwebbed.

"Incendio!" Neville pointed his wand at the fireplace, rebelliously deciding to warm the place up a little. Never once had he seen Snape's fire lit. The fireplace flamed to life, then went out, then lit again, then went out once more, lit again... Snape had a faulty flue. 

That’s when Neville had his first look at Snape’s bookshelves.

As a student he’d been so terrified of Professor Snape, eyes glued to his steepled hands, vulture’s beak nose, and dark cape, that he had never noticed the shelves beyond him. Row upon row -- Neville’s chin lifted -- floor to ceiling, and, unless he missed his guess, they were the first-rate type that concealed passages, with no doubt even more shelves tucked inside. Every nook and cranny was filled, cobwebbed, more books stuffed sideways on top of books. He sagged in awe at the work ahead of him. It was one week before the beginning of term.

"No wonder Begonia wants those shelves...." Neville thought aloud, taking a step.

With little more than that, his wand hand began to shake as if he had palsy. His legs and arms started jiggling, knees went weak, and he stumbled and careened drunkenly halfway across the room.

A jiggle hex! Neville’s head snapped left and right, looking for the source.

Too late. He crashed into a suit of armor which broke apart on the floor, reassembled itself over him, the breastplate snapping over his chest, helm over his head, the arm pieces clicking in place (though luckily the gauntlets remained on the ground, twitching like live fish) -- and it was damned hard to walk around after that, though at least the weight reduced the jiggling. Then, half a dozen Feather FlightTM quills ("Never lose a quill -- they come when you call!") launched themselves from Snape's desk and splattered against the metal breastplate. The ink looked, in the ochre firelight, like dripping black blood.

Neville knew when to beat a hasty, if clomping, retreat.

And that was only two steps past the door. Outside in the empty, innocent, normal-looking hall, Neville shook his head in amazement. He’d known Snape had been paranoid in the extreme, and rightly so, considering he’d betrayed everyone except (according to Harry) Dumbledore -- but auxiliary hexes? In a school? It's what you'd expect of an Auror -- or Gringotts' vault. 

Stumping down the wide corridors of Hogwarts, Neville considered himself lucky. He skipped the embarrassment of Madam Pomphrey's and opted to walk the jiggle hex off, taking a stumbling route through the most deserted parts of the castle.

By the time he reached the door of the teacher's lounge, his heart had slowed, and the hex had worn down to occasional tremors. On his long walk, he’d come to the grim realisation that the other professors had dumped an unwanted and likely impossible task on their newest coworker.

Still in the suit of armor, Neville ignored the startled looks of six or seven other professors as he creaked and clomped to the tea station, and picked up one of the chipped tea cups. The Bottomless tea kettle was still hot. Good.

"Er. How is it going?" Flitwick had the grace to look chagrined.

Neville poured himself a cup of tea. The china milk jug had wandered off, walking aimlessly around the windowsill: an older model that had gone senile, so he ignored it. Instead he scooped in some sugar. Stirred it with a tinkling teaspoon. Lifted the metal mask to drink. Put the cup down, as he considered his answer. The mask snapped shut. He toyed with saying, "Fine, thank you, why do you ask?" but that wouldn't solve the immediate problem of Snape's office. So he answered, "Exactly how you would expect..." And then, although he didn't mean to say it, gushed out, "No one could do this alone."

Guilt started on the faces of his fellow professors. 

Aha! Neville pressed his strategic advantage, something he'd learned drawing the sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat. He lifted the metal mask again and added, "I need volunteers. Two at least."

He was met with complete silence. Until the others started babbling.

"Ahem. I'm afraid I'm, ah, quite busy at present..."

"Arithmancy tests, they won't write themselves--!"

"You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to fit all of Muggle history into six weeks!"

Someone cleared her throat near the door. A stern and familiar sound. Neville turned, dropping his mask with a clank, to see Headmistress McGonagall in the doorway.

She said, "Surely at least one of you can make the time." She turned from one face to another, as each professor looked at the floor, the ceiling, their hands. "Or are we to shut Professor Snape's office as a permanent memorial?"

~*~*~

Two days later, the entire staff convened in the dungeon outside Snape's former office. A brass plaque sealed the door, stating Hogwarts' gratitude in perpetuity.

Headmistress McGonagall said a few words about Snape's good deeds, and continued, "Most ribbon-cutting ceremonies are meant to open doors, but Professor Snape would have wanted his closed--thus we shall honor him with what he himself would wish."

She waved her wand, Disapparating the ribbon in a stream of sparks. She added, "I must confess, I was making a joke when I suggested this. But a good idea said in jest is still a good idea."

The staff members stood with their heads bowed a moment. Then each member either stayed briefly, or lingered, according to how well they knew Snape. With murmuring conversations, they at last drifted off in twos and threes. Begonia cast a longing look at the door, probably regretting the loss of those bookshelves.

After everyone had gone, Neville remained, leaning his head against the cool brass of the plaque. He'd known since he was a fourth year that he was going to focus his studies on Herbology, and then likely come back to teach at Hogwarts. He was supposed to have finally had it out with Snape. Gone to Snape's office and shut the door behind him. In his mind, it always started the same:

"Professor Snape," he'd say with dignity. "Might I have a word?" He'd sit down; Snape wouldn't rise, but he'd look up.

The next part had a dozen different versions. In one he shouted. In another he was calm and rational. But in all Neville would make the man respect him at last, for standing up to him if nothing else. He was supposed to have had the satisfaction of seeing that look of surprise, quickly hidden with a scowl.

But now, Snape was the hero, according to Harry, memorialized by the Hogwarts staff. Neville didn't even get his curiosity answered, why Snape could be such a bastard to children; one in particular. If he’d been able, today Neville would’ve been digging out confiscated Zonko’s toys, love letters, and valuables (none of which Snape ever gave back, the difference between him and the other teachers). Maybe Snape still had Neville’s Remembrall -- who knew what else? It wasn't Neville's proudest moment, to recognise he'd volunteered because he wanted to go through Snape's proverbial underwear drawer to find something embarrassing, break the dark hold Snape had on his imagination. None of the kids had liked Snape, but Neville had grown up under the shadow of his grandmother’s threats that if he didn’t behave and become a good wizard, he could end up in St. Mungo’s like his parents! For him, Snape had been the stuff of nightmares, both in how much he looked like a dark wizard, and in his perpetual insinuations that Neville had little chance of becoming a wizard at all.

Neville realised he’d been leaning his head against Snape’s door for a really long time, longer than would look normal. He pushed away from the plaque, away from the cold dungeon door and rubbed the back of his neck.

He could take the letdown. It was his best quality, that had eventually put steel in his spine, something the likes of Malfoy had never had. Neville could take a blow, a disappointment, a jibe, a sneer -- or everything Snape had dished out his year as Headmaster, which had been worse than anything Umbridge had ever cooked up. (Cruciatus curses on first years? Who did that?)

The other professors had forgiven Snape so easily; maybe they blamed Death Eater policies. But they hadn’t been bullied by Snape for seven years. Without Snape's own word, there was no way to tell how much of it had been Snape, and how much the Death Eaters. Neville’s grandmother before her death had explained that she’d been so afraid that Neville would be hurt like his parents. So fearful, in fact, that once she even considered hiding him among Muggles. Neville had always been willing to forgive in exchange for just a simple explanation.

Neville stared at Snape’s door, trying to picture a Snape dredging some inner truth out his dark depths for the edification of one Neville Longbottom. His imagined Snape sat in stony silence, trapped like a coiled snake.

Neville giggled at himself and said aloud, "Ah well, Snape. You would never have made sense to me anyway."


End file.
